Better Luck Tomorrow

Better Luck Tomorrow (2003) is a crime drama you can watch online on iFILM, the film that launched Justin Lin's career. Parry Shen leads a group of overachieving Asian-American high schoolers — flawless GPAs, varsity stats, college-application gold — who run a side hustle in fraud, theft and worse.

Ben and his crew (Jason Tobin, Sung Kang, a sharp-edged John Cho) keep telling themselves it's controlled. Extra-curricular. Temporary. But the line between the students they perform by day and the criminals they're becoming at night gets thinner with every job they take on.

Lin shot it independently; Paramount picked it up after Sundance 2002. What makes it land is the refusal to editorialize — no after-school-special conclusions, just characters making bad choices with clear eyes. Stream Better Luck Tomorrow (2003) on iFILM.